3 ms·

Why does it matter that the jerk be properly classified?

philh 13y ago
If you know why people behave like they do, it's easier to make them stop.
phaus 13y ago
Because it should be bad enough that the guy is a jerk without attempting to permanently label him as a sexist and/or a racist when there's a good chance that he might not be. Most agree that he is a scumbag who said something that he shouldn't, but that doesn't mean he's racist or sexist. He called her a whore because its a universal, non-gendered term for a sell-out. If a person thinks that its a gendered term, then that person is an idiot because there are lots of male and trans-gender prostitutes. That being said He's both wrong and hypocritical for accusing her of being a sell-out, especially when you consider he wanted her content for the sole purpose of making money off of it. She should be entitled to make money off of her work, especially when another entity is going to be. He most likely called her an "Urban Whore," as a play on words using the title of her site. He probably thought it was clever, but as we already established, he's an asshole. Assholes often exhibit poor judgement. Yet when an African American woman (or anyone else) calls herself an Urban Scientist, she loses the right to be genuinely offended by the use of the term Urban. I didn't see her state that she was offended by the word, but nobody else really needs to be offended by it on her behalf. Instead, focus on the fact that this guy's an asshole for calling a person a whore for not giving him free content so he could make money. There's a potential that he meant to be both sexist and racist, but there isn't really any way to know for sure. That's why its stupid to suggest that he was either of those things. Does it really matter that an asshole is accurately classified? Not really, but if we are going to talk about something, we might as well be accurate about it.
- philh 13y ago
  I suspect that "gendered term" is not very well-defined, and certainly I don't have a very good model of what it means. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure: > there are lots of male and trans-gender prostitutes. It does not automatically follow from this that "whore" is not a gendered term, and nor does it follow that anyone who thinks "whore" is a gendered term is an idiot. (I'm sure some people have a definition of "gendered term" which implies "can only be literally true of one gender". But I doubt that everyone agrees on that definition, and I doubt that's how it's generally used.)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

philh 13y ago

If you know why people behave like they do, it's easier to make them stop.

phaus 13y ago

Because it should be bad enough that the guy is a jerk without attempting to permanently label him as a sexist and/or a racist when there's a good chance that he might not be. Most agree that he is a scumbag who said something that he shouldn't, but that doesn't mean he's racist or sexist. He called her a whore because its a universal, non-gendered term for a sell-out. If a person thinks that its a gendered term, then that person is an idiot because there are lots of male and trans-gender prostitutes. That being said He's both wrong and hypocritical for accusing her of being a sell-out, especially when you consider he wanted her content for the sole purpose of making money off of it. She should be entitled to make money off of her work, especially when another entity is going to be. He most likely called her an "Urban Whore," as a play on words using the title of her site. He probably thought it was clever, but as we already established, he's an asshole. Assholes often exhibit poor judgement. Yet when an African American woman (or anyone else) calls herself an Urban Scientist, she loses the right to be genuinely offended by the use of the term Urban. I didn't see her state that she was offended by the word, but nobody else really needs to be offended by it on her behalf. Instead, focus on the fact that this guy's an asshole for calling a person a whore for not giving him free content so he could make money. There's a potential that he meant to be both sexist and racist, but there isn't really any way to know for sure. That's why its stupid to suggest that he was either of those things. Does it really matter that an asshole is accurately classified? Not really, but if we are going to talk about something, we might as well be accurate about it.

philh 13y ago
I suspect that "gendered term" is not very well-defined, and certainly I don't have a very good model of what it means. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure: > there are lots of male and trans-gender prostitutes. It does not automatically follow from this that "whore" is not a gendered term, and nor does it follow that anyone who thinks "whore" is a gendered term is an idiot. (I'm sure some people have a definition of "gendered term" which implies "can only be literally true of one gender". But I doubt that everyone agrees on that definition, and I doubt that's how it's generally used.)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]